He had neglected her, ignored her when alone; he stung her and wounded her with his sneers, his poisoned darts of contempt and contumely. He had never lifted his hand to her, yet he had killed her in the end as surely as the drunken tinker slays the wife of his bosom with a boot heel or the kitchen poker.
And Kathleen knew much of this, not quite all perhaps, but she remembered the suffering of the quiet, pale-faced, cowed woman whom the young girl had surrounded with a worshipping, adoring love.
So she stood watching and listening for the coming of the car. Who the other guest might be, she did not speculate on. It was someone in whom she felt not the slightest interest. In a way she was glad that her father was bringing a friend of his own choice. It would be someone for him to talk to. Coombe, Jobson and Cutler would hardly prove to be associates of whom his lordship would approve. She knew his feelings toward Sir Josiah and she felt a twinge of shame, for in a way she had shared those feelings in the past.
His lordship was in an ill humour. He disliked the country intensely. The only occasions when he found the country at all bearable was, when one of a large house party, there was some shooting to be done in the daytime and unlimited bridge, billiards or baccarat to while away the night. That he would not find these amusements waiting him at Homewood he was fully aware.
During the journey from London Bridge to Longworthy, he was fidgety and faultfinding. The carriage when the window was up was too hot; when it was down the carriage was draughty, the seats were dusty, "a disgrace to the Railway Company." The line, he maintained, was the very worst laid line in the Kingdom. He was jolted to pieces, carriages worse sprung than this he had never ridden in.
"We might have come by car," Scarsdale said.
"I hate cars, nasty draughty things, I dislike the smell of the petrol, the hot oil, the dust, I hate running over children and dogs. I'm deuced unlucky in a car—never go out in one unless there's an accident; ran over a child last time when I was with Lysart, shook my nerves up most confoundedly. By George, Harold, I blame myself, yes, I take blame to myself, I do by Gad!"
"For running over the child?"
"No, I'm thinking of Kathleen's marriage. I was anxious about her, deucedly anxious. Kathleen was getting on, I don't tell everyone, but you know, you the friend of her childhood, that Kathleen isn't so young as she was. Not that she's gone off, not a bit of it. I consider Kathleen more handsome to-day than ever in her life. She comes of the right stock, Harold, the Stanwys wear well, the men and the women. My grandmother, begad, was a toast when she was fifty-five and they say she did not look a day over thirty. She was a Stanwys by birth, Arabella Stanwys, daughter of Francis—but this don't interest you. No, I was speaking of Kathleen. I say that I take blame to myself that I hurried on the wedding, hurried it on. I'll admit it frankly. Thoughts of Kathleen caused me sleepless nights. I'm naturally an affectionate man, a man on whom responsibility weighs heavily. I realised my position, Harold. 'When I am dead and gone, Begad!' I said to myself, 'what of Kathleen? What of my poor, dear child?' You'd have said the same had you been in my place. Then I fell in with Homewood in connection with a Company, common old fellow; you'll dislike him intensely as I do, by gad!"
"And so you married Kathleen to his son?"